An Inordinate Fondness, or Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Male Convergent Ladybird Beetle (Hippodamia convergens) getting frisky with a mating pair of Asian/Harlequin Ladybirds (Harmonia axyridis).

I‘ve received my first online burn over in the comment stream at Laelaps. Well, if not the first, then certainly the most impassioned:

Neil,

I’m glad you wrote a letter. Good for you! You can write, but did you read anything I wrote? And? Just for the record, once again, I specifically said, at my blog, that I did not believe this particular revision in the evolutionary doctrine was going to prove anything for Christianity or Creation. Please, please I wish you all would stop suggesting that I said otherwise. I was perfectly content to post the article, make a comment or two, and let people draw their own conclusions until Brian linked back to my blog with his smart title, condescending remarks, and until many other started posting their ’science’ at my blog. But at my blog, I can defend it my way. I do wish you would stop mischaracterizing my blog entry.

Honestly, I am a bit confused that I provoked such a passionate responce since I hadn’t directly addressed either Jerry’s original blog post or his comments to Brian’s post. I had noted, by linking to Brian’s original post, that creationist bloggers had picked up the AP story about the Ileret skulls, in my post about the same. I also mentioned my exchange with the AP reporter in a comment which apparently inspired the portion of Jerry’s comment directed at me. Addressing the whole group of Laelaps readers Jerry goes on…

Thanks for all the fun. I leave you all with your rocks, bones, theories, charts, graphs, and unbelief. If I ever want to know about beetles (!) or water or trees or mars or ’science’, I’ll get back with you. If any of you ever need or want to know about Christ, well…you know where my blog is! Happy trails!

I guess that that too is meant as a burn, although I’m not sure what’s so uninteresting/irrelevant about water, trees or Mars (or bones and graphs for that matter). As far as beetles go, as J. B. S. Haldane observed, and Carel has recently reminded us (complete with his stunning beetle vanitas), a fondness for beetles would appear to put me in good company. I am glad that He cranked down the oxygen though, but more on that later.

Namaste!

Larval Asian/Harlequin Ladybirds (Harmonia axyridis) cannibalize a pupa of the same.

Homo Evolutii Testis

An ontogeny of human ontology? An evolutionary epistemology? Whatever it is, go read Brian Switek’s massive blog treatise Homo sapiens: The Evolution of What We Think About Who We Are at Laelaps.

A welcome antidote to the recently muddied waters of human evolution, it begins with Genesis and ends with, well, Answers in Genesis. But in between it covers everything from the mystery of the missing penis bone, Scheuchzer’s salamander man and Brookes’ stone scrotum right up to Howell’s ‘March of Progress’ and Morgan’s bobbing bosom. Like I said, it’s massive, so find a comfortable seat first. Alright go! (okay, I fixed the link, now go!)

I Knew I Had Smart Readers!

Wow, 100% of respondents correctly guessed the ‘micromystery’ , unscientific polling suggests similar results by those who played at home…

Groan…

Is this the most irresponsible reporting by a science journalist this year?

Surprising fossils dug up in Africa are creating messy kinks in the iconic straight line of human evolution with its knuckle-dragging ape and briefcase-carrying man.

The new research by famed paleontologist Meave Leakey in Kenya shows our family tree is more like a wayward bush with stubby branches, calling into question the evolution of our ancestors. - Seth Borenstein AP

Sadly, probably not, but it’s pretty dang awful. Predictably, the creationists are breaking out the champagne flutes. A quick glance at the abstract of the new Nature paper by Spoor et al. shows that the researchers are hardly calling evolution into question.

What Seth means, of course, is that the new research is calling into question widely held misconceptions about human evolution as an evenly-graded straight-line trajectory from Lucy to you.

While scientists had largely given up this simplistic model years ago there has remained vibrant debate about the specific temporal, geographic and evolutionary relationships between three early hominins, H. erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster.

Unfortunately, it’s hard (but not impossible!) to draw a picture of this, and Rudy Zallinger’s infamous ‘March of Progress’ painting is so deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness that given the task of pictorializing human evolution, most people would no doubt ape some version of it.

Image borrowed from here

Fortunately, those looking for nuanced, well-contextualized analysis of the new study have Afarensis and John Hawks to look to. Both of whom realize that chimpanzees are, in fact, apes and so this sentence makes no sense at all…

Like chimps and apes, “they’d just avoid each other, they don’t feel comfortable in each other’s company,” he said.

Um, maybe Mr. Borenstein should stick to writing about climate.  Um, we don’t exchange in ad hominins around here, anymore, for now.

Okay, two cranky posts in a row, something more fun next, I promise!

POSTSCRIPT:  Seth Borenstein sent me a link to an updated, and substantially improved version of the story: http://www.wtop.com/?nid=220&sid=1212984  I’m still bummed that the original version went to press.   I also probably won’t be landing any science writing jobs at the AP anytime soon.

So Long and Thanks for Nothing, Assholes.

 

The Baiji is dead. Long live the Baiji.

Actually, this is kind of old news, but newly published (in Biology Letters.) Last year’s intensive survey of the Yangtze river dolphin’s entire historical habitat failed to reveal a single living individual. Even if some cryptos evaded the survey… things don’t look good.

Ominously/tragically, the website of the baiji conservation website is down, probably from an overload of just-too-late interest.

Echoing the original paper, BBC claims “If confirmed, it would be the first extinction of a large vertebrate for over 50 years.“

Well, if by “large” you mean > fruit-bat sized, and you reject extinctions of distinct ’sub’ species. We’ve seen the obverse claim skewered before.

Here’s the most tragical bit: the map for Baiji recovery now applicable only in alternate multiverses.

some things to say about Douglas Adams, river dolphin monophyly etc. but not now.

I Wasn’t Even Supposed to Be Here Today…

Yesterday’s bluster, and todays morning gloom sunk temperatures down to an unusually chilly 50 F, and brought egrets to our arid park, cast adult antlions agossamering across the sidewalks, and sent the ladybird larvae into a cannibalistic frenzy. What a great day to teach kids zoology! Check the Flickr roll for highlights.

A Passing Glance

Iridescence is one of those curious optical games that light loves to play. From pearl earrings to tropical butterflies that appear to be made out of cellophane, iridescence is a source of luminous beauty across the natural world. Like most magic however, it has its dark, deadly side too.